Originally Posted by jrl767

3. What was the longest flight within the continental U.S. being flown with the 727-100? We’re looking for route and airline.

We've already established SFO as the western point; I think Chicago O'Hare is too obvious a candidate for the eastern ... I seem to recall AA serving the SFO-Memphis market in the late 70s, and the 727 would likely have made more sense than the 707.

Some good logic applied there, J, but alas, it was neither AA nor Memphis involved on this route. Please guess again! (Hint: It was a longer flight than MEM-SFO)

6. Based upon total length – not passenger capacity – what was the longest airliner flying scheduled flights out of Tucson, Arizona in late 1977?

the real questions here are:
(1) did anybody fly a wide-body into TUS?
(2) did DL or UA fly a stretch DC-8 into TUS?

My memory says both answers are "no" ... and on that basis, my memory also says that the 727-200 is 3" longer than the 707-320

Your memory serves you correctly, you old coot! I wanted to emphasize "scheduled" on the off chance that some cargo or supplemental airline might've been operating a stretch 8 into TUS. Certainly American ran plenty of -10s through there in the seventies though not in the schedule I referenced, probably because that schedule was from the fall and a bit early for the extra capacity provided by the -10s.

As to United and Delta, neither airline was serving TUS in 1977 and I don't believe either ever operated a stretch 8 into TUS once they started serving there.

That said, I have fond memories of flying on a Delta DC-8-61 between Dallas and Phoenix on a gorgeous spring evening in May of 1979. I was in First Class and got a beautiful photo of those low slung JT3Ds as we passed over the Grand Canyon. Later that evening I got a great silhouette shot of the 707-320's muscular looking JT3Ds as we banked away from the setting sun whilst flying American down to Tucson. Sadly, my camera was a Kodak 110 instamatic and both the pictures and the negatives are long gone.